Some Thoughts on Empire (1937)

From the July 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

That sober journal, the Economist is alarmed about the future of the British Empire. Germany will seize Czechoslovakia, make herself mistress of Eastern Europe, then seize the British Colonies, and bust up the Empire. It can only be stopped by taking a firm stand immediately.

. . . the fate of the British Empire depends on the European balance of power. It is in Czechoslovakia that the destinies of the Empire are going to be decided. The Government should promptly declare that the new British armaments, as well as all our other resources, will be used to resist aggression in any part of Europe.—(Economist, March 6th, 1937.)

So the survivors of the last war, together with their sons, having once saved the slums of Britain and the Imperial connection on the fields of Flanders, are to do it again in the mountains of Bohemia. But why? Will the Balance of Power fill an empty belly or stop a hole in the roof of a working-class house? By no means! Even the Economist will agree there. But that, they will say, is only a means to an end. The Empire itself is at stake! But before we decide to meet again in Prague, let us examine this Empire business a little more closely.

What is the Use of the Empire?

When the patriots are pressed for a plain statement about the use of the Empire to the mass of its population they become very vague and unsatisfactory. Some say that it provides work and wages. The standing army of unemployed is a sufficient answer to that. As the Empire has grown larger, decade by decade, there has never been a time—except during the Empire’s wars—when there were no unemployed. The last expansion of the Empire, in 1914-1918, left the permanent unemployed more numerous than ever before.

“The Empire provides food for Britain’s workers.” The undernourished millions know this not to be true. And the Scandinavian countries, without any Empire, can show rather less unemployment and a better fed, clothed and housed population than can Imperial Britain.

“The Empire provides security and keeps the peace of the world.” The last Great War and the pervading fear of the next great war answer that stupidity.

“The Empire provides a lucrative field for investment." Now we are getting somewhere, for this is true. But who owns those invested thousands of millions ? The workers ? Not at all; their masters own them. And under that smooth-sounding word “investment” are the harsh facts of a century-old pouring-out of the capitalist-owned products of British industry for use in Empire and foreign countries. Only in the muddled heads of the professional economists does that process benefit the British workers. Nor, indeed, does it help the workers in the countries to which this wealth goes, for it remains the property of the capitalist class, wherever it may be.

What, then, is the use of the Empire? As far as the workers are concerned it isn’t worth a war. Nor is the threatened absorption of Czecho-Slovakia into Germany. Life for the workers there will not be materially different.

Perhaps the best answer to the imperialists was recently found in the patter of two knockabout comedians of capitalism, the City Editor of the Daily Express and the High Commissioner for Australia, Mr. S. M. Bruce.

The former said (quite truly as far as it goes) that British trade policy had made enemies abroad, and we needed bigger armaments to deal with the situation thus created; while the latter said that if we had not got our great imperial and foreign export trade we would not have been able to afford the £1,500-million for the bigger armaments! (Times, February 25th, 1937.) So the armaments are good because they safeguard the trade, which is good because it pays for the armaments, which are good . . . and so on.

Another Proposition

The Economist can only see two choices before us: Readiness for war to “save” Czecho-Slovakia —how the population must hope to be saved from their saviours—or the end of the Empire. Let us offer a third. The British ruling class do not care two hoots about the Empire any more than they care about Britain. What they are concerned about is their property and their profits, something as sweet as life itself—anyway, as sweet as the lives of the millions of workers they will sacrifice to safeguard their property. But should the ruling class feel that patriotic notions have become a hindrance to their interests, then we shall see them in their true colours. Then, like the Spanish grandees, they will flood their country with foreign mercenaries, pack their armies with criminals released from jail, fling black against white, Mohammedans against Christians, Protestant against Catholic. They will order the slaughter of their own fellow-countrymen without limit, like the French ruling class in 1871.

The same ruling class which will lavish lives and money like water in order to protect its trade and investments, the source of its privilege, will, if faced by a powerful demand by the working class for restitution, rush into the arms of its erstwhile enemies, the foreign ruling class groups, seeking their help to hold down the insurgent workers. The international war will be called off. The international brigands will fix up a new and “permanent” division of the loot—permanent, that is to say, for a few years, like all capitalist peace treaties. The capitalists of all nations will have won another battle in the greater war, the war of the idlers against the wealth-producers.

How can the world be made safe against war? Only by making it safe against capitalism. And until the coming of that event shall open up a new era for the human race it is the duty and the interest of the working class in all countries to have nothing to do with Imperialisms and Jingoisms. The task before us is to add to the size and strength of the forces of Socialism, and use them to exert ever-greater pressure on the capitalist class at home.

Edgar Hardcastle

The wrangle over Egypt (1946)

From the June 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

Let it first of all be made quite clear that in all the deliberations that have taken place, and will take place, over the evacuation of British troops from Egypt, the welfare of the Egyptian worker and peasant has never been an issue. Whether under the domination of British or Egyptian masters, they will not see much difference in their lot. Whether their rulers are British or Egyptian, they will still have to eke out a miserable existence; they will still have to labour from sunrise to sunset in their master’s fields; they will still be riddled with disease; in short, they will still be a subject class, ruthlessly and viciously exploited for profit.

What is, in fact, at issue in Egypt, as is quite openly admitted and taken for granted by both parties, is the preservation of the safety of British capitalism’s lines of communication through the Eastern Mediterranean. Opinions differ, however, as to the best means.

Said Mr. Anthony Eden, for the Conservatives, in the debate in the House of Commons: —

“His first complaint about the Prime Minister’s announcement at this time was that it gave the impression, by the manner in which the withdrawal of troops was referred to, that their purpose in Egypt was something other than it was-- namely, the Defence of the Canal Zone.”

(Times, 8/5/46.)

And Mr. Attlee, for the Labour Party, in the same debate:—

“The Government were as much concerned as anybody else with the security of the communications of the Commonwealth and Empire, with the security of the Canal, and with maintaining the best possible relations with Egypt and her continued alliance with this country, and it was precisely for those reasons that they were making the approach they were making.''

(Our Italics.) (Times, 8/5/46.)

What, then, is behind this, at first sight, rather sudden decision to withdraw troops from Egypt? The reasons are political and also military.

For many years past, the whole of the Middle East, of which Egypt is hut one part, has been the focal point of steadily expanding nationalistic feeling. During the past war, and in the period since, this nationalistic fervour has become even more intense. The recent outbursts in Egypt against British troops are an illustration of the feeling against the foreigner. Although still doing their utmost to retain as much influence as possible in the area, the capitalist Powers concerned have had to take note of this desire for independence.

That Mr. Herbert Morrison fully appreciates this is shown by the following quotation from his speech in the House of Commons: —

“If the British Government had told the Egyptian Government that they would give no undertaking about the withdrawal from Egyptian soil, the negotiations would not have gone on and then the British Government would have had to face certain consequences. There would be sharp antagonism on the part of the Egyptian Government and Parliament; almost certain disturbance and riots, possibly even revolution, and it might have led to British forces being attacked and having to defend themselves.”

(Times, ibid.)

Then there are military aspects that indicate the conceptions on which the new policy is based. The following statement is from an article in the Observer, (12/5/46) : —

”The Canal . . . . can he bombed and made unusable by aerial mining operations. Any Power with the use of air bases in the Eastern Mediterranean and a modern air force can reasonably hope to achieve this. The 10,000 British troops that the 1936 Treaty permits to be quartered in the Canal Zone are no defence against such attack The defence of the Canal itself is largely irrelevant. The vital area is the whole Middle East, with Palestine as its natural centre . . . Now that it is proposed that Egypt . . . . is to be militarily evacuated, there is only one part of the Middle East where the British have retained the right to keep troops: Palestine and the neighbouring State of Transjordan. It is my contention that this limited area can provide an adequate base for a Middle Eastern defence or police force. It has air bases which enable present-day transport aircraft to reach the Canal Zone in an hour, Cairo in less than two hours, and Baghdad in less than three. It has a port at Haifa capable of great development, and it has oil supplies in its immediate vicinity . . . ”

In short, the Labour Government and its advisers are willing to take troops out of Egypt because they believe they will be better placed elsewhere for the defence of the Middle East. Imperial aims have not been dropped, but merely modified. 

The Labour Party is not a Socialist party and was not elected with a mandate for Socialism. It must therefore of necessity administer affairs, whether domestic or foreign, within the framework of capitalism. In its domestic affairs it has already amply demonstrated to the capitalist class that, fundamentally, they have nothing to fear from its administration. In foreign affairs its policy has sometimes even dismayed some of its own members and, on the other hand, has met with warm approval from the Conservative Party. On the Egyptian issue both Parties are concerned with one aim—how best to preserve the security of communications in the Middle East. The Labour Party, no less than the Conservatives, has sought to safeguard the interests of British Capitalism.

Stan Hampson

Imperialism! (1909)

From the February 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

When a certain Imperialist was dead, his friends, who had forgotten all about him when he was starving, thought his great love of the Empire should be fittingly memorialised, so they clubbed together to raise upon his grave a chaste headstone, upon which was inscribed the following beautiful legend:—

HERE LIE

the mortal remains of

JOHN SMITH,

who worked hard and died poor, supported

through all the trials and vicissitudes of life by

THE REFLECTION

that 

HE WAS THE PROUD INHERITOR

of a share

IN THE GLORIOUS EMPIRE UPON 

WHICH THE SUN NEVER SETS.

At his death 

he was placed in this grave,

and his share of 

THE GLORIOUS EMPIRE

was 

reverently shovelled in on top of him,

so that he

came by his own in

THE END.

—Stockton Bulletin

Early days of globalisation (2006)

Book Review from the December 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Corporation that Changed the World: How the East India Company Shaped the Modern Multinational by Nick Robins (Pluto Press)

I often gauge how much I have enjoyed a book by the amount of highlighting and marginal notes I make in pencil. This book, like many on my shelves, will horrify those who prize pristine, unmarked first editions.

On 31 December 1600 a precursor of the modern transnational corporation came into existence. Its pioneering techniques in the field of trade and commerce, and downright murder and corruption, preceded by centuries the noxious business practices that we associate with today’s all-powerful corporations, many of whom have a higher turn over than small countries.

This book presents as a meticulous account of perhaps the most powerful corporation that ever lived, tracing how it came into existence, how it operated, its inner structure, the role of its own armies in its rise to supremacy, its part in the Bengal Famine when 10 million died as a result of the Company’s market manipulation, its militaristic role in the Opium Wars, its part in the Indian Mutiny and the Boston Tea Party and how, for the last twenty years of its existence, it ruled India as an agent of the British Empire. When it comes to downright exploitation, corruption, slaughter and sheer negligence and indifference to the suffering of others, perhaps no company that ever existed comes near the East India Company in its ruthless pursuit of profit, whilst refashioning the world commercial order in the interests of privilege and power for hundreds of years to come.

In its time the company had many critics, most notably Edmund Burke, “the real champion of India’s identity”, Adam Smith and Karl Marx. Burke fought long and hard to impeach the Company’s Governor General Warren Hastings for the devastation wrought on India in its endless search for profit.

Commencing his opening speech at Westminster Hall in February 1788, Burke said:

“I impeach him in the name of the people of India, whose laws, rights and liberties, he has subverted, whose properties he has destroyed, whose country he has laid waste and desolate . . . I impeach him in the name of human nature itself, which he has cruelly outraged, injured and oppressed, in both sexes, in very age, rank, situation and conditions of life.”

Despite Burke’s opening four day tirade against Hastings – one of the longest opening speeches in history – during which women were carried out fainting, at which the Speaker was “rendered speechless” and at which spectators were willing to pay ú50 for a seat, despite an ensuing trial that lasted from February 1787 to April 1795, Hastings was acquitted.

Considering the Company’s operations for the New York Daily Tribune in the summer of 1853, Marx noted five characteristics: 

“ . . . a permanent financial deficit, a regular over-supply of wars, and no supply at all of public works, an abominable system of taxation, and a no less abominable system, of justice and law..”

Satirising the Company’s administrative system, he commented how there existed “no government by which so much is written and so little done.” Marx furthermore viewed the company as a tool of British capitalism plc in India, observing how “the aristocracy wanted to conquer it, the moneyocracy wanted to plunder it and the millocracy to undersell it”.

The Second Opium War was, in Marx’s view, attributable to the Company’s operations in the East and its insistence that it had the right to swamp China with drugs in the name of profit, regardless of the addiction-induced misery its trade created or how the Chinese authorities felt. He wrote:

“While openly preaching free trade in poison, it secretly defends the monopoly of its manufacture. Whenever we look closely into the nature of British free trade, monopoly is pretty generally found to, lie at the bottom of its ’freedom’”.

In eight carefully researched chapters, Robins traces the Company’s operations from its inception as a trader in spices to its role in running the Indian sub-continent on behalf of the British crown, withholding, one imagines, very little regardless how gruesome, and there indeed are some stomach-churning passages.

In the final chapter, his analysis masterly done, Robins, contemplating the state of corporate play today, reflects how the Company’s legacy reveals the importance of taking on the mega-corporations who presently rampage across the planet unhindered, and this, for socialists, is the book’s one failing.

Robins’ remedy for curbing corporate power is simple:

“First of all, its market power and political influence must be limited . . Next, stringent rules are needed to ensure that management and investors do not use the corporation as a tool for their short-term interests . . And, finally, clear and forcible systems of justice have to be in place to hold the corporation to account for damage to society and the environment.”

Thus, a brilliant attack on unchecked power in the pursuit of profit is marred by the simple request that the capitalist class behaves and shows a little more respect when carrying out its obscene business, and that the executive arm of capitalism – government – hurries to the rescue of society and the natural environment. Smiley-faced capitalism is, for Robins, the only remedy. Warren Hastings laughs in his grave.

All said, if you’re into the study of corporate power gone mad, read this.

John Bissett

Letter: The Workers and the Empire (1936)

Letter to the Editors from the December 1936 issue of the Socialist Standard

A correspondent (H. W. H., Glasgow) writes asking us if we will deal with a point raised in Forward (Glasgow, October 5th, 1935) by Mr. J. P. M. Millar, General Secretary of the National Council of Labour Colleges. Arising out of an article by Sir Norman Angell, entitled, " Are Colonies Worth Having?” Mr. Millar wrote a letter containing the following:—

He (Norman Angell) argues that he answers Italy’s jealousy about Britain’s Colonial Empire by saying—in so many words — “ Yes, but it doesn’t materially help us to deal with our economic problems, for we’ve 2,000,000 unemployed.” He doesn’t realise that it is largely thanks to the profits and opportunities arising from our present and past Colonial Empires that the British unemployed have almost as high a standard of life as many millions of employed in Germany and Italy.

Our correspondent adds: —

Now I do not know if Mr. Miller’s reasoning is correct, but if it is does it not show that the British workers’ standard of life is to a great extent dependent upon the maintenance of the British Empire against foreign invaders, and that without it their standard of living would decrease? I am not suggesting, of course, that, even if true, this would provide them with a moral right to oppress Colonial peoples, but the question is of interest from a purely economic point of view.

Reply.

There are several separate issues raised in this letter, and it is necessary to take them separately: —

First, we may say that Mr. Millar’s facts do not impress us. Mr. Millar makes the claim that the British unemployed have almost as high a standard of life as many millions of employed in Germany and Italy. He might have added with equal truth that the British unemployed have almost as high a standard of life as many millions of employed in Great Britain, in France, in Portugal, and in Holland—all of them countries with large colonial empires. Apart from a generally low standard of living in Portugal, there are in all countries masses of workers living on or about a bare subsistence level.

He might recall that spokesmen for German Nazism have recently been boasting that widespread destitution, such as exists in our "depressed areas ” is unknown in Germany.

Also Mr. Millar might have added that the countries with a higher standard of life than this country include the Scandinavian countries, the U.S.A., and the British Dominions—all of them countries with little or no overseas Empire.

We reject the implication contained in Mr. Millar’s argument that wages depend on the wealth of the capitalist class. Abundant experience shows workers desperately poor, in spite of the riotous wealth of their employers — some Indian workers and their millionaire employers are a case in point; while, on the other hand, under favourable conditions workers have been able to maintain their standard of living in spite of the falling profits of their employers.

Therefore, it is not safe to assume that greater wealth for Italian capitalists (due to profitable colonial plunder) would lead to a higher standard of living for Italian workers; nor that the loss of parts of the British Empire would reduce the British workers' standard of living. In both cases many factors, including factors of a world character, would have to be taken into account.

To take an actual example, we deny that the acquisition of Boer lands after the Boer War and the mandated territories after the Great War has improved the position of the British workers, or worsened the position of any of the workers concerned.

What is true, of course, is that the loss of colonies may (although this is not necessarily true of all cases) cause a disturbance of capitalist trading relationship, which results in aggravating unemployment while re-adjustment is going on. For example, if Great Britain lost her colonial empire and the new owners prohibited the import of British goods, the trades affected—having been built up on this market—would suffer loss of sales and increased unemployment. In time the situation would adjust itself so far as capitalism ever does, with the acquisition of new markets elsewhere, or with the development of some new or expanded industry.

One other fact which has bearing on this question is that it has yet to be proved that colonies do add to the wealth of the “country" which controls them. That they are profitable for groups of capitalists who are directly interested is admitted, but the capitalist class as a whole has to meet the cost of capturing and keeping them. There is considerable evidence to show that many colonies cost the whole capitalist class more than they are worth. They are retained because the capitalists immediately concerned are sufficiently influential to see that they are retained.

Mr. Grover Black, in two books, “A Place in the Sun" and “The Balance Sheets of Imperialism" (Columbia University Press; published by Milford, 10s. 6d. and 14s.), argues with a wealth of facts and figures that colonies do not “pay," except to the minority directly concerned. The cost of capturing and keeping them far outweighs all the profit derived from them.

Finally, even if it were granted that the loss of the Empire would cause a temporary or even a permanent lowered standard of life for the British workers under capitalism, that does not constitute an argument for the limitless sacrifice of workers’ lives, necessitated by wars to defend the Empire. Would Mr. Millar say that it is worth while sacrificing a million British workers’ lives (as in the Great War) in order to defend the Empire, and sacrificing millions of German and Italian workers' lives in order to wrest it from the British capitalists, and hand it over to Italian and German capitalists?

The case against working class support for wars is not touched by Mr. Millar’s superficial argument.

Editorial Committee.

Merdeka in Malaya (1957)

From the October 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

On August 31st Malaya attained Merdeka (independence), after over a century of British colonial rule. The day is a memorable one for the people there, who celebrated amid scenes of wild rejoicing and shouts of “Merdeka.” In the capital, on the stroke of midnight, the new Prime Minister told the people:

“A new star rises in the eastern sky—a star of freedom for yet another Asian people. This is the greatest moment in the life of the Malayan people, for a new nation is born —a nation that will stand forth free and independent." 

Incidentally, this little speech recalls our article in last December's issue of the Socialist Standard entitled Happenings in Hungary, where it was pointed out that the battle cry of “Freedom ” was used to rally support to a budding capitalist class trying to seize power in Hungary. The last sentence in that article will probably prove as relevant to Malaya as to Hungary: “In other countries whenever the new ruling group is firmly in the saddle of government they lose no time in turning on the workers.” 

Miss Nancy Simmons, a Colonial Office was also present She had been invited as a representative of the British working-class by the Malayan Prime Minister. This point illustrates the usual procedure of the rising ruling-class when taking over governmental power, of attempting to give their cause a working-class flavour.

What Malaya is worth

The transfer of power has taken place with the blessing and co-operation of the British Government, who had despatched the Duke of Gloucester there to represent the Crown, and, as part of the ceremony, hand over the instrument of transfer. A glance at recent events may indicate the reason for this support, which, at first sight, might seem against their interests.

Foreign investment (mostly British) in Malaya was nearly £100 million in 1937, chiefly invested in rubber plantations and tin mines. Imports into Malaya amounted to £484.5 million in 1956, of which U.K. was one of the largest suppliers.

But for several years past profits have been reduced by internal strife—Chinese "communists” attempting to gain power by force. The Chinese population is important, being as numerous as the Malays. These Chinese miners and agricultural workers find that developing capitalism is no panacea for their problems, and so they give their support to the Communist Party under the mistaken impression that their policy will radically alter society. This Party is influenced to an extent by the regime in China, to whom it looks for moral support. British interests in Malaya, seeing that there is a real threat to their investments, called in the British Army. Many members of the British working-class have already lost their limbs, their health and some their lives, fighting for their masters’ interests in the steaming jungles of Malaya.

Besides the antagonism that all this may arouse in Britain how much better to let the native rulers take over the thankless task of tying to make exploitation popular in Malaya. Merdeka in Malaya is the answer.

Trade Union Movement

The beginnings of a working-class (in the present-day meaning of the term) occurred with the rapid development of that country at the turn of the century when rubber and tin became useful to industry and the development of the steamship and the Suez Canal made bulk cargoes from the East a proposition for industrial Europe. Tamil workers were imported into Malaya from India to work on the rubber plantations. There are 400,000 such workers now employed. Chinese were imported for the tin mines. As an indication of the growing trade union movement, in 1947 696,036 days were lost in strikes on rubber plantations. In Singapore in 1945 173,000 workers came out in a general strike.

In the first elections held in 1955 the union of the various nationalistic political parties won 51 of the 52 seats. The only opposition seat was won by the Islamic party. Many of tbs workers in Malaya believed that their troubles were due to the country being ruled by foreigners and, therefore, they supported their native capitalist class. Presumably these workers will find out that a change of administrative personnel will not alter their class position.

Women and Merdeka

One feature in the capitalist development in Malaya is the lack of status of the Malay woman, despite her influence in favour of Merdeka. At the elections the newspapers expressed astonishment at the voters. Some of them had trudged miles carrying babies to get to the booths. By tradition, Malays are allowed to divorce their wives with only three months' sustenance as alimony, and it is estimated that 60 per cent of Malay marriages end in divorce. As a result of all this there is widespread prostitution. Very little other employment is open to women, and destitution is the only alternative.

One thing of which we can be confident is that a modem capitalist welfare state will not stand for the expense of directly keeping large numbers of unproductive discarded women and their children. For the women of Malaya capitalism will no doubt in due course bring them an up-to-date capitalist marriage system. It is a useful spur to productivity for a worker to be burdened with the worry of providing for a wife and family. But it will be economic causes, the need for a larger labour supply educated to some degree, that will change the way of life and their bondage for many of Malay women. The “independence” of their country will play but a little part. 

What are the prospects?

Malaya is a heaven for big business. The two chief industries, rubber and tin, require vast capital outlay for efficient exploitation. The price of labour is comparatively low, but the demand for these raw materials is tremendous and constantly expanding. What more can a capitalist wish for—low wages and an expanding market. Furthermore, the development plan for the period 1956-60 envisages a capital expenditure of over £1,000 million. Merdeka will, they hope, mean a rich harvest to the foreign capitalists (who own much of the wealth of Malaya) without the headache of repressing a working- class continually growing more aggressive.

The following tip (straight from the horse’s mouth) sums up the position for the capitalist in Malaya, and, incidentally, for the worker too. This is an advert by the Malayan Government in Eastern World (August 1957): “INVEST IN MALAYA, THE LAND OF GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY. BIGGEST RETURNS ON INVESTMENT, LOWEST TAX ON PROFITS. SECURITY ASSURED BY STABLE GOVERNMENT.” But riches at one end of the scale presupposes poverty at the other, and it will be poverty that will continue to be the lot of the workers in their promised land of Merdeka in Malaya.

Frank Offord

Resistance to Empire (2023)

Book Review from the October 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Great Defiance: How the World took on the British Empire. By David Veevers. Penguin, 2023.

This is an account of the rise of the early British Empire that counters the ‘War of the Worlds’ style idea that Britain spread out to conquer the world based on some sort of natural or technical (or even providential) superiority. It puts centre stage the resistance to the rise of the empire, and shows how the British were often thwarted, or their victories curtailed.

For instance, the book begins with Ireland, making the point that the conquest took over a hundred years, and nearly ended up bankrupting the English state. Mostly, the English had to rely on a network of local lords who would ally with the Irish cause as much as support the crown, as their interests depended. The Tudor state thus adopted "an innovative strategy of colonial expansion. Withdrawing the crown’s claims to territories beyond the Pale, Elizabeth stepped aside and opened up the colonisation of Ireland to private enterprise." Backed up by the violence of the British state, using such weapons as induced famine and atrocious slaughter, rebellious Ireland was brought to heel.

This became the operating method of the expanding English colonialism, and indeed, the colonisation of the new world was linked by some of the people who colonised Ireland: the name Walter Raleigh keeps recurring through this book. Veevers deploys the indigenous people’s names for themselves, thus what is now Carolina in the United States was Ossomocomuck and the people were the Algonquian. Likewise, in the Antilles, the people were the Kalinago, and what is now called St Vincent was Hairoun.

In part, the expansion into the Americas was made possible by the conquest of Ireland, providing a substantial market for imported sugar and other goods, and also providing people to export to work in the colonies, in the form of indentured labour (which, as the author emphasises, and contrary to some claims today, is not comparable with the slavery that followed. Indeed, the book deals with the slave trade extensively, and notes how the Dahomey kings tried to take control of the trade in enslaved people from the Bight of Benin. Many Africans were not passive victims but agents, warts and all. And, again, it shows how the pieces of the jigsaw came together, and the tobacco and sugar trades drove the demand and thus the qualitative change in the slave trade to the new world.

The book also covers what happened when the English arrived as supplicants, such as in India or Japan, and found themselves confronted by powerful empires in their own right. The English were able to offer revenue to the emperors in the form of trade as well as military support (especially seaborne). Much of the history of the English presence was shaped by trying to escape taxes.

It’s not easy to come across accounts of how the English (later the British) came to dominate in India. My memory of schoolbooks is there was a blackhole in Calcutta and then Clive won the battle of Plassey (actually, he didn’t, but that’s a longer story). Veevers explains the interactions between the English merchants, the settled Portuguese community and the Mogul nawabs and princes. This book is worth reading for this account alone.

The book ends with the point that the history of the British Empire is as much an act of forgetting and airbrushing the subjectivity and substance of the wide variety of the world’s people. As he points out, in a very real sense, the British unmade the world.

Pik Smeet

Letter: Boycott in West Africa (1953)

Letter to the Editors from the April 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

A reader sends us the following letter and asks for our comments:—

S.W. London.

The Editorial Committee.

Dear Comrades,

On February 14th the West Africa weekly newspaper (published in London and of the same company as the Daily Mirror) published an amusing letter. Although no doubt their 9,000 white shareholders would nave us take it seriously.

It concerns the regional propertied interests in western Nigeria. Apparently the leader of the nationalist party of that region has imposed a boycott on the Governor because he considers that the collection of white whisky-boozers are too slow. There has been some delay in the approval of the western regional local government. Poor Sir John won’t be able to attend any more cocktail parties in the West for a while.

Instead he will probably relax in his palatial government house receiving Labour Party delegations all wanting to “save Africa.” But now, this letter raises the age-old question of how far is one capitalist group prepared to compromise with another? Mr. Haig glibly says: “ In your issue of January 10, you describe Mr. Awolowo’s boycott of Sir John Macpherson as “a clumsy weapon." Is this really all you have to say about this piece of colossal bad manners, bad psychology and bad policy? I wonder in what terms you would describe a British boycott of a leading African personality.

“Forgive me saying that this regrettable understatement of yours is typical of your growing tendency to appease the African nationalist even at the cost of good sense and common decency. It is not fair to your African readers, many of whom are inevitably short of education and experience. These readers are exposed, in their own countries, to many newspapers which distort and suppress news, and base their comments not on truth and reason but on the illogical frenzy characterising the emotional nationalist throughout the world.

“You, at least, should give them candid and honest comment based on truth and the accepted standards of Christian civilisation.

“I suggest that Mr. Awolowo’s boycott of the Queen's representative in Nigeria, and one of the best friends Nigerians have ever had, is a disgrace both to him and his party and to the traditional courtesy of the Yoruba people."

In some respects this letter can be applied generally to Africa and expresses a very unobservant

opinion although perhaps that too is an under-statement. However, would the Socialist Party of Great Britain care to examine the letter itself and answer it?

Yours sincerely,

Nigerian Student.

Comment.

Our comments can be very brief. Those who administer capitalism in Britain are not interested in emancipating the British workers from capitalist exploitation nor in emancipating African workers. Likewise the West African-born Capitalist and Nationalist political parties, while interested in ending dominance by British capitalism, are not interested in emancipating West African workers from capitalism.

As Socialists aiming at the establishment of Socialism and the emancipation of all workers everywhere, we are all in favour of one kind of boycott. We look forward to the time when British, African and all other workers will join together in a boycott of capitalism, and all its political supporters and hangers- on, and will gain control of the machinery of government for the purpose of establishing Socialism.

In the meantime there is bound to be the arrogant attitude of the “Empire builders" as exemplified in the letter referred to by our correspondent.

Editorial Committee.

The Sun Never Set (2023)

Book Review from the March 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

Empireland: How Imperialism Has Shaped Modern Britain. Sathnam Sanghera. Penguin £9.99.

Sanghera was born in Wolverhampton to Punjabi immigrant parents. Here he provides an examination of the impact of the British Empire on both the UK and the various colonised countries. The emphasis is on South Asia, but there is plenty of discussion of other areas too. The empire is seen as having consisted of two stages. Down to the 1780s, it was based on sugar plantations in the West Indies, but after the American War of Independence it involved ‘a more concerted power grab of India and Africa’, dominated at first by the East India Company.

There is no hiding much of the violence involved in building and maintaining the empire. In India, the Amritsar Massacre of 1919, also known as the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre, involved troops firing on an unarmed crowd, and may have led to over a thousand deaths. In one ‘battle’ during the invasion of Tibet in 1903, 629 Tibetans were slaughtered; large sums were paid by the Tibetan government as indemnities. Many invasions and occupations resulted in the stealing of artefacts and their transport to museums in the UK: the word loot comes from the Hindi for ‘spoils of war’. There were objections to such theft, though, such as from William Gladstone after the invasion of Ethiopia in 1868.

Taking items for museums or private collections was not the only way that Britain’s ruling class benefited from the empire. Many country houses were built from laundered colonial booty. The dogma of free trade (invoked when it suited) justified the lack of government action to alleviate the Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s and the many famines in India (in which perhaps ten million died). Armed force was employed to compel so-called free trade on colonies, so that they would export cheap goods (mostly food) to the UK. The much-lauded Indian railway system was built to allow faster movement of British troops and to enable easier access to the Indian countryside for British exports.

Other legacies of empire for Britain supposedly include wild racial stereotypes, the public school system, jingoism, and the alleged distrust of cleverness. Above all, one result is the immigrant communities in Britain, which ‘is a multicultural, racially diverse society because it once had a multicultural, racially diverse empire’. The term ‘racially diverse’ is objectionable here, but Sanghera does argue that concepts of race and racism were not really a driving force behind the empire (racism is more likely to have been a result of slavery, rather than a cause).

All in all, a useful and informative survey of the British Empire and its consequences, both historically and today.

Paul Bennett

"King of the Castle" (1945)

From the October 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is strange what material the socialist finds to his hand in his investigations into the phenomena of society. A book picked up casually, as was the case with the writer, may well throw light upon yet another aspect of that great struggle that is continually with us; through world wars and the uneasy peace periods in between: the class struggle.

The book that is the subject of this article is one by Rumer Godden, and has the strange title, "Rungli-Rungliot.” This means in Paharia "thus far and no further,” a description one might apply to the authoress's socialist knowledge. She is, without a doubt, a fine descriptive writer. One has only to shut one's eyes after reading this sentence in her picture of the house on the slopes of the Himalayas. "The lawn ends in clouds that are sweeping below it,” and one is there both in spirit and imagination. The socialist, however, whilst taking pleasure in looking at the scenery through her eyes, finds most interest in that part of the book that deals with the lives and toilings of the coolies.

That this particular section of the working-class; the coolies of North Bengal, India, live very unhappy lives, is evident from even Rumer Godden’s unseeing pen. Some of the chapters take one back to Marx’s description of the conditions in English factories of the nineteenth-century period. No wonder that even the unenlightened masses of India are beginning to take notice of the results emanating from the rule of the British section of the capitalist class.

The scene of this book is set in a tea garden on the slopes of the Himalayas, and is surrounded on all sides by similar tea gardens—this being excellent tea growing country. This particular tea garden, according to the authoress, consists of two thousand five hundred acres managed by one white man. To quote her words about the manager and his wife: "Their prestige on the estate is enormous. He is king and she is queen and their power among the people is absolute. A less nice man would have become complicated, but W. is genuinely popular and full of a lordly happiness, all the happier and good to see because it is so lordly.” (Page 16.)

We get another view of this "king of the tea garden” when it had been raining heavily, persistently for six days. The authoress says the rain was not so depressing because "The constant drumming noise on the tin roof had something steady and soothing about it.” "Twice W.,” she goes on, "has had to ring the gong at midday to call them in, it was too saturating even for them." (Our italics.)

The manager may have appeared to the ignorant coolies (and the authoress!) to possess the powers of a king, but he was under no illusions himself. He knew well that to that particular section of the capitalist class who deal in the commodity tea he was just another manager, to be replaced if the output of tea declined, whether it be due to rain, drought, snow, earthquake), or any visitation of nature. This may explain why he was straining every nerve and muscle (of his coolies?) to increase the output from four hundred and fifty pounds of tea last year to half a million this (1942).

That the manager of this particular tea garden may or may not have been a shade better in his attitude towards the Indian working class is a point that need not bother us unduly. We have an account of earth-works being built in this and neighbouring gardens. In the gardens, it appears, children carry baskets of earth upon their hacks. The big difference between W. and other garden managers, in the eyes of the authoress, is that he does not employ children under a certain age for this heavy work. One might just as well say, that the capitalist of the nineteenth century who did not employ children under the age of, say, seven, was more humane than hie fellow capitalists. It is only a question of degree; the principle remains the same.

To the members of the reformist parties of this country who urge the putting in order of our own "house” before attempting that of others we reply: Put this "house” in order by all means, and by that we mean not a new layer of paint, but the demolition of the structure so that the new can be built. In other words: we have constantly stressed the fact that reforming the capitalist system will not remove the causes of society's inequality that are the foundation of that system. Only the replacement of the capitalist system by socialism will do that, and it is for that reason we seek to throw light upon the activities of the capitalist class in other countries; and for the same reason that there are five political parties throughout the world bolding to the same object and principles, though independenty.

Socialism, of its very conception, must be international. That is the reason why the workers in Australia. New Zealand. U.S. of America, Canada, and Great Britain, who have formed political parties striving for socialism are the vanguard of the working class in their struggle for emancipation. We ask those people who are attempting to alleviate the lot of the workers of India to examine the S.P.G.B.'s case, and agree that the next step must be the formation in India a political party whose object is not to reform the capitalist system, but to establish a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of society as a whole

L. Young.

Blogger's Note:

There's a strong chance that 'L.Young' was Len Young, who was a member of the Birmingham Branch of the SPGB.

The Ides of March. (1940)

From the March 1940 issue of the Socialist Standard

“The Ides of March are come.

Ay, Caezar? but not gone” (Shakespeare).

Social change often begins in the spring. There is an inherent restlessness at this season of the year which at present is intensified to such an extent by the black-out, and other impositions which our masters have decided are necessary, that a “fed-up” feeling is becoming general.

The bewitching beauty of an Arctic sky canopies scenes of ghastly horror in the fairy land of Finland. Men, women and children are being blown to pieces, burnt to death, and even when horribly wounded gripped in the merciless fingers of an iron frost until petrified into icy carcases; these gruesome deeds being the result of an attempt, on the part of the workers perpetrating them to decide whether this or that brand of profit making shall survive. This land of loveliness, with its small fir Christmas trees, naturally decked, snow-gemmed and bejewelled, dancing stars, the peaceful moon and the Northern Lights, where sound is sacrilege in the awe-inspiring natural scene, is now turned into an inferno because one-sixth of the earth’s surface does not apparently satisfy “the only Socialist country in the world.” Oh! Socialism! what crimes are committed in thy name!

The United States is not supposed to be a direct participant in the war, but she is vitally interested in the peace. Should the war cease now, Hitler would be in a favourable position; he could start again advantageously after a breathing spell; therefore we may expect peace proposals, veiled or open, to emanate from Germany shortly; these are likely to come to nothing. The Presidential election taking place this fall in the land of Uncle Sam causes those interested in American politics to desire first-hand information regarding the situation in Europe. The visit of Mr. Welles is, therefore, of considerable interest to those who are influential in Government circles. It is well known that all branches of big business in God’s country do not see eye to eye with the President. If Roosevelt runs again there will be a clash between those who control the wealth of the United States and those exploiters who desire for themselves a more equitable distribution of it than prevails at the present time; the small fry of the capitalist group will at the end of the coming scrap be wiped out. American capital is striving to get a grip on Sweden; the Swedes are fully alive to the game that is being played, and for that reason refused to declare war on Russia in order to aid Finland. They are fully awakened to the perfidy of Moscow. They can understand also why certain bankers should be pro Stalin and other capitalist politicians pro Finn. The Swedes know the U.S.A. financiers. Sweden has no national debt to function as a vehicle to put money into moneylenders’ pockets, and, worse still from a ruling class standpoint, her working class are well organised. There is a threat here to the exploiter which he apparently cannot ignore. Should Sweden be drawn into a war, however, the working-class organisations may be dislocated. The capitalist class everywhere make the most of the opportunities a war gives them and during hostilities systematically work to weaken or destroy working-class movements. Could Sweden be drawn into a war, the Unions would be weakened at the end of it; education would cease while the war was on and the working class would emerge politically hamstrung, the movement in Sweden would be thrown back for a generation; the strange feature in this connection is that Stalin is aiding big business in the work of entrapping the workers of the Scandinavian countries into a position where they can be crushed. Stalin cannot afford to have on his borders a working-class movement becoming alive to the real fundamentals of its class position.

* * * * * *

The Lion’s Cubs have responded to their parents’ call and many working men have left their homes in the Dominions overseas to take their place in the battle line; the old boy considering all should be in order before he makes his spring. Whether he lands on the Russian Bear or the German Eagle, he is going to make fur or feather or both fly shortly; this will cause certain organisations in the country to imitate the mole and others to dissolve their revolutionary ardour upon the capitalist breast of patriotism.

The Pyramids of Egypt have looked down upon many strange happenings and have often figured as a setting for the stage of world events; civilisations and empires have come and gone, but these works of the slaves of old defy all revolutions and challenge the hand of time. Napoleon and Caezar before him made their entrances and their exits without making any impression upon these colossal monuments, and therefore it is hoped the writer will not be considered disrespectful when he points out that the visit of Mr. Anthony Eden to this ancient land is not likely to set the Nile on fire or to cause the Pyramids to topple.

The bottleneck of the Empire has to be safeguarded and, although not broadcast, it is an open secret that the Arab Federation will play a strong hand in what is about to unfold in the Near East.

It is interesting to note how social production has linked up the peoples of the world; in a war this is glaringly revealed. Britain must not only think of the Suez, but of Mesopotamia, and in fact the world; no nation can live to itself, and not even an Empire so vast as the British can be independent of the rest of the planet. The ties that bind are economic and cannot be broken; the peoples of the world are forced into unity by the development of the system itself. The workers are now called upon to realise they have no country, but are of a class: a class that must make the world a Socialist world—that is their job.

The news spread by the exploiters’ Press, or piped over the ether, is, in the main, what it is considered we should believe; we listen to our master’s voice like the dog in the picture and, naturally, as a consequence most wage slaves subconsciously absorb ruling class ideas and make them their own; the exceptions are considered eccentric and are often designated by their fellows as “batty”; the unearthing of the truth is a difficult task even in normal times, and, now the war is on, to make matters worse, organisations are appearing on every hand whose sole function is to prevent it from being discovered. This being the case, when our masters or their henchmen draw our attention to the north, it is best to look in the south; when they point to the east we should turn our gaze to the west. Never forget, even when war is on, the capitalist class live by exploiting the working class, and they would a thousand times rather lose any war in which they may be temporarily engaged than lose their power to make us work for their permanent benefit.

The aged poor continue to accelerate their journey to the grave by trying to live on the miserable pittance they tremblingly receive.

The extension of the war to the Balkans and the Near East is probable. Egypt is the pivot upon which may turn many spectacular events: she is a vital connection between the Near and the Far East, Palestine, Turkey, Irak, Iran, Afghanistan, and later the whole world will soon feel the dislocating shock of the clash of rival capitalist interests. Blood will flow, and all to no purpose; the economic problem that the system has evolved cannot be solved without destroying the system itself, and this is not our masters’ object; they are at war because they think war, for what they want, is essential to enable capitalism to function. There can be no improvement for our class until we decide to take political action with a view to establishing a new form of society. We should aim at ending exploitation by removing the cause of it. The cause is capitalist ownership and production for profit. The cure is common ownership and production for use. The people in common must own that upon which they in common depend.

During the progress of the war we can expect our masters to make the most of their opportunities to further subjugate us. We must resist every attempt in this connection. Attempts will also be made to lower real wages by financial legerdemain. The working class must be put on their guard. The capitalist class do all the “paying,” but the working class do all the producing. Everything necessary to the carrying on of the war will be produced by the workers, the capitalist class will not produce anything.

The Capitalists will do their “paying” out of the profits they make by exploiting the working class.

During the war the capitalist class will loan to the Government a portion of their profits: this gives them a mortgage on the future production of the working class.

After the war the Government will “owe” the capitalist class countless millions. It will then be discovered that social services, wages, etc., must be cut to the bone in order to meet the interest on what is owing. This is the reward of the working class.

Now is the Ides of March; will there be any stirring in the minds of the workers ? The old timers will look everywhere for signs; they will recall those inspiring periods in working-class history when the deeds of the toilers lent hope to what is to come.

The triumph of Socialism is inevitable, and although “fate or insufficiency may provide mean ends for men who are what they would be,” still we have our consolation.

We know that we are working in the noblest cause that ever appealed to the world or to man.

Charles Lestor

The Struggle for World Trade. (1926)

From the August 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

Those members of the ruling class who have some understanding of the real nature of modern economic and political problems and are able to take broad views outside the narrow range of the professional politician, are not very numerous and seem fated to do most of their thinking after it has ceased to matter what they think. They discover the cause of the leak after the ship has gone to Davy Jones’ locker. The “Round Table” (June, 1926, page 478) has made the discovery that the Great War was, in the words used by a famous diplomat in another connection, “worse than a crime, it was a mistake.” The capitalist governments which went to war in 1914 for the dominance of Europe did so on the assumption that Europe was still “the undisputed centre of the world’s trade, the world’s finance, and the world’s military and industrial power.” Their mistake was in having overlooked the fact that that European supremacy was already being challenged. Had they been wise and realised this in time, “The Great War would probably never have been fought … ” While the allied and the central European capitalists were at war, the spoil for which they sent their conscript workers to fight passed out of the reach of both groups. America in the meantime has become a capitalist power of almost as much importance as the whole of Europe together, and other powers have also grown to an extent which threatens the basis on which West European capitalism rests.

“Fifty years ago there was no continent which was not economically dependent on Europe. To-day not only is North America completely emancipated, but she has actually become the universal creditor of Europe. … In Asia the war has given birth to a national consciousness in Russia, India, China and Turkey, which is giving them new powers of resistance to European control. Fifty years ago her peoples were the passive purveyors and purchasers who made the Eastern market the source of so much European wealth, but now they, too, are building their own factories, in which they are manufacturing goods for their own needs instead of buying them from Europe—and they are doing it largely with the aid of European machinery and European capital.”

The “Round Table” then goes on to give figures illustrating the economic basis of the new America :—

“In 1913 the average monthly production of hard coal in the United States was 43,088,000 tons, as against continental Europe’s 23,243,000 tons. In 1925 the disproportion had increased to 44,231,000 tons, as against 22,131,000 tons. … In regard to pig-iron the difference is even more striking. In 1913 the United States produced 2,601,000 metric tons per month, as against Europe’s 2,514,000 tons, but in 1925 the American monthly output had risen to 3,082,000 tons, while Europe’s had fallen to 2,143,000 tons. In crude steel the story is the same. . . Even in the matter of shipping an alteration in the balance may be found. . . In whatever direction one looks at the statistics, they point to a similar result. Although her population is only about two-fifths of that of Europe, the United States produces more maize, oats and cattle than all the countries of Europe (excluding Russia, Great Britain and Ireland) put together, to say nothing of cotton, oil and copper”

Then there is Japan, whose capitalists also found in the war between their European commercial rivals (both allied and enemy) a heaven-sent opportunity. The “Osaka Mainichi” in an “Overseas Expansion Number” (May 30th, 1926) analyses Japanese foreign trade over a series of years, in an article headed “European War, The Turning Point of Japan’s Foreign Trade Prospects.” While European manufacturers were busy with munitions, “Japan’s export trade suddenly increased to an enormous figure.” There was, of course, a temporary slump after the war owing to Japanese over-development and to the revival of manufacture in Europe, but again Japanese trade is developing rapidly, while the capitalists of Great Britain have had to face a long-continued decline. It is interesting to notice, too, that Japan is passing through the normal stages of capitalist evolution, “in the past, coarse manufactures and raw material occupied the leading position, but now the tendency of the trade is in manufactured goods. . . Industry has developed into machine industry” Exports since 1913 have increased nearly four times in value, and the more recent rapid growth has taken place particularly in some of Britain’s best markets, India, China, and Egypt.

The “Round Table” writer, having shown the extent to which the position of the British capitalists and those of Europe generally has worsened, then goes on to discuss possible remedies. The case is not quite beyond hope; the ship may, he thinks, be raised from the bottom of the sea. Great Britain is too small to stand alone, but she may yet hold her own either by throwing in her lot with the European nations, or by reorganising the British Empire on a stronger, more exclusive basis.

We are not concerned with the question as to which of these alternatives should be chosen by the ruling class of Great Britain. It is, however, necessary that we should be aware of the economic developments going on in the capitalist world, and that we should take note of possible regroupings on the lines discussed in the Round Table, especially as the question is presented in a way which deceives many workers into confusing other peoples’ interests with their own.

Already there are numerous international trusts and cartels in existence: for dyes, for shipping, for steel rails and other steel products, and an international coal association has lately been much talked of. The Federation of German Industry has expressed its favourable attitude towards a “European Customs Union” (page 491), and the whole of this field is to be covered by the forthcoming World Economic Conference of the League of Nations. On the other side there has never been a lack of advocates of the establishment of a British Empire customs union against the rest of the world. A serious feature is that these schemes have no difficulty in attracting the support of labour leaders and so-called working-class organisations. The attitude of the British Labour Party in support of the Empire idea is, of course, well-known. Within their ranks, however, in the self-styled left wing, the I.L.P., there is already a definite tendency to maintain, in opposition to the official view, an old-fashioned liberal attitude favouring the formation of closer relations with the continental governments. This they are pleased to call being “good Europeans.” The Social Democratic Federation in Great Britain has for a year or two advocated the “United States of Europe.” In March of this year there took place in Brussels a meeting between well-known labour M.P.s of Belgium, France and Germany, which adopted the following resolution (“Round Table”) :—

“The economic interdependence and interpenetration of nations proves the necessity for commercial agreements which will familiarise the peoples with the idea of a European Customs Union as a factor in a general scheme of international economics.”

We have Mr. Pugh, of the T.U.C. General Council supporting the international steel rail cartel (Daily Herald, March 26th), and Mr. Hodges proposing a similar association for the coal trade. According to the “Christian Science Monitor” (June 12th), the Austrian Social Democrats, through their official paper, the “Arbeiter Zeitung,” are urging the workers of Austria and Germany to work for a scheme of European federation, in spite of its capitalist origin and capitalist backers.

There are two main arguments used in support of these various plans to federate Europe, or develop the British Empire, or link up all the States of North and South America under the leadership of the U.S.A. First, it is said that “prosperity” can be obtained through the increase of trade which would result, and, secondly, that this is a way to prevent war. In defining the Socialist attitude (that is, the attitude which is in accordance with the interests of the working class), we have, therefore, to consider these two points.

First, what is prosperity? The “Osaka Mainichi,” quoted above, states that “Japan’s cotton industry is prosperous.” To prove the existence of prosperity, it shows that the employers have plenty of orders, are extending their plant, and finally that their reserves set aside out of profits amount to a very large sum. The cotton workers are not even mentioned. In fact, their conditions are so bad that the Indian manufacturers, whose workers are treated abominably, maintain that conditions in Japan are worse, and that this enables the Japanese exporters to India to undercut Indian textile products. “Prosperity,” whether measured in profits, or the amount of foreign trade, or the total amount of wealth production, or the amount of property owned by some sections of the population, is no guide whatever to the condition of the workers under capitalism. “Prosperity” does not mean prosperity for them. The recent large profits made by margarine companies have been ascribed, no doubt correctly, to the general depression and the general low wages among the workers (Observer June 27th). As the worker’s standard of living falls, he is less and less able to afford butter. His poverty produces prosperity for shareholders in margarine companies. The actual growth of the powers of the human race to produce wealth is still less an indication of the factors which improve the position of the workers. At the present moment there is depression in the coal industry, not only in Great Britain, but in almost every coal-producing country in the world. That depression is admittedly due to the fact that more coal is being produced than is required, and the falling demand for coal is in turn largely due to the discovery of better and cheaper ways of providing for fuel requirements. In other words, miners are everywhere threatened with increasing unemployment and lowered wages because the world has learned how to produce the same amount of power in a new way with the expenditure of less labour. The human race has become potentially richer, but, owing to the present organisation of society, great masses of workers are becoming actually poorer because of that improvement in the means of producing wealth.

Those means of wealth production in every capitalist country (including industrial Russia) are not owned and operated by the whole of society for the needs of society. They are owned almost exclusively by a numerically small class of property owners, and their use is not governed by human need for food and other necessaries and comforts of life, but by the condition of the market. Goods are produced for sale, and if sales decline so does production, although needs may be greater than ever. The cutting down of production means greater unemployment for the workers, and an increase in their poverty; but even if for short and exceptional periods capitalism in some part of the world does manage to find employment for all its workers, they do not on that account cease to be poor. The prosperity which such a condition spells for the shareholder, for the “industry,” and for the “nation” does not extend to the workers. There still remains on the one hand a class of wealthy persons living on income derived from the ownership of some form of property, and on the other the workers without any property worth mentioning. The private property system still permits the workers to be robbed of a large share of the wealth they have produced, and compels great numbers of them to be engaged in non-productive labour, essential only to capitalism.

And the evil does not stop there. Production for sale as inevitably produces war as it does working class poverty. Each capitalist or group of capitalists, whether in one country or combining several countries, comes into unavoidable conflict with rival interests. To realise his profit each must sell his goods; but demand is never great enough to absorb the whole mass of goods offered for sale. Productivity is always growing, but the amount the workers can purchase with their wages remains more or less the same absolutely, while in proportion to the total wealth produced it becomes relatively less. At the same time the luxury demands of the rich fail to increase sufficiently quickly to dispose of this ever-growing surplus.

The result is a competition for markets and a constant effort to cheapen the costs of production and undersell competitors. This constant effort hits the workers when it takes the form of an all-round intensification of working conditions aimed at increasing the output of the worker, and in another direction it leads capitalist interests and the governments behind them to seek to monopolise supplies of raw material in different quarters of the globe. This in turn leads, through the clash of national policies, to the extension of navies and air forces in order to “protect” trade routes, monopolised markets, and sources of raw material. When the tension becomes too great, and when the bluff of diplomats and governments has reached its limits and they have no alternative but to translate their threats into action, we have war? For some 20 years before 1914 such a struggle had been going on between the British capitalists who had been dominant, and the German capitalists, who had to choose either to challenge that, dominance or consent to yield up the glittering prizes which are to be won by the victorious group of exploiters of the working class. German goods and British goods competed in every market. German aims clashed with British aims in Africa, Turkey, Persia, and China. The German Navy was built by the German exploiters to challenge the position of the British members of their class. The pre-war conflict was fought with many weapons and under many guises before it came to open warfare, but capitalist trade was at the back of it all. As Tirptiz always maintained, “it was the competition not of ships but of goods which changed the political face of Europe.” (Gooch. History of Modern Europe, page 227.)

The competition of goods may again change, is already changing the political face not only of Europe but of the world ; and again it will not fail to produce war. The formation of the United States of Europe may link together lately hostile capitalist interests, but only for purposes of commercial conflict, and with the greater certainty of an eventual appeal to arms against Pan-America, the British Empire or some other great federation of capitalist powers. Japan is already actively invading the markets of the European states, India, China, Russia, are all on the way to becoming new and aggressive participants in this mad scramble. Where will Pan-Europe sell her goods and what will she do when the world again becomes too small to hold all the first class powers? Our labour supporters of these various rival schemes are silent on these points. What will happen at the not far distant date when the U.S.A. feels the really urgent pressure to dispose of her surplus abroad? That date has been delayed by various accidental conditions, and by devices such as the present extravagant development of instalment selling, which cannot solve the ultimate problem. It is in effect nothing but the anticipation of next year’s home demand for goods. When it breaks, as Mr. Ford is already confident that it soon will, the need to find markets for greatly extended production will be only the more acute because of the postponement. According to Alvin E. Dodd, of the U.S.A. Chamber of Commerce already the “absorption of surplus production presents one of the outstanding difficulties of the American manufacturer.” Production since 1913 has, he says, grown by 30 per cent., while population has grown by only 16 per cent. The problem now arises as to how to find a “Demand for the oversupply.” (Christian Science Monitor, 18th June.)

War is not caused by the wickedness or the greed of capitalists. It is the outcome of policies they are compelled to adopt by the forces at work in the capitalist system. Federating capitalist States into even larger groups can only extend the area of war, it cannot abolish it.

The interests of the workers require that they should resolutely refuse to be drawn into any one of these schemes. It follows no less plainly that they should oppose, as does the Socialist Party, all persons and organisations which advocate the contrary anti-working class policy, even though they masquerade as “labour” parties.

These organisations are urging policies which suit the interests of some section of the capitalist class in their respective countries. The American Federation of Labour, acting behind the convenient screen of the Pan-American Federation, is helping U.S.A. capitalist trade and capitalist finance to extend their hold over Central and South America. Our own Labour Party, with its tender regard for the needs of the Empire, is the tool in effect of one British capitalist group, as the I.L.P. is of another. The communists are in matters of foreign policy the unconscious (and it must be added the very inefficient) tools of Russia. The Australian Labour Party with its passion for the exclusion of Japs and other non-white races and its general advocacy of navalism and militarism, and the Labour Party of South Africa with its futile anti-native attitude are tarred with the same capitalist brush. That these parties act in the way they do has little or no connection with the merits or demerits of their respective leaders. As these, like their members, are not socialist, but have rejected the socialist contention that the prime, almost the only present aim worth consideration by the workers, is the abolition of private property in the means of wealth production, they must cling to their present policies or give way to blank despair. As we have so often insisted there is only one way of administering capitalism—the capitalist way. This remains just as true even although the capitalists or the Labour Parties may change the form of the system and retain the exploitation which is its essence under the name of state capitalism or nationalisation. Whatever the views and wishes and beliefs of those who administer capitalism, even if as in Russia they happen to be communists, the pressure of economic forces will compel certain policies to be followed, capitalist policies which presuppose working class poverty and lead to war.

Just as Czarist Russia was in repeated conflict with Austria over the control of Balkan territory and ways of communication, and with Great Britain over the Near and Middle East, so Russia to-day is “claiming” Bessarabia from Rumania and trying, through the clash of Rumanian and Italian capitalist interests, to bring Mussolini’s government into the scale against Rumania. Mr. W. N. Ewer, Foreign Editor of the Daily Herald, summed the position up well in a lecture on “Continuity in Foreign Policy,” reported in Foreign Affairs (July 1926).. He mentions this ancient Russo-British conflict of interests and adds :—

“The struggle was inevitable. If we obeyed those laws which had moulded our policy in the past we were bound to oppose Russia, or anybody else who hindered us in our gentle work of colonial expansion and exploitation. This was the fundamental continuity in our policy, and the only way to discontinue that policy was by a complete break with our previous economic policy. In 1924 the Labour Government had been bound to take the same course as any other government, as had been evinced by our attitude then to Russia, Egypt and Irak. No blame could be attached to anyone for this, so long as we intended to go on being an economic imperialist power. Reformism in diplomacy was impossible for it simply meant the acceptance of the other side’s principles. The only way out was by the abandonment of empire and exploitation. We could not have the best of both worlds.”

We would only correct that last sentence by pointing out that Mr. Ewer, who condemns exploitation and “continuity” and at the same time supports the Labour Party, has apparently found out how to make the best of both worlds. But those who really wish to avoid those policies must join us in fighting for Socialism and against all the defenders of capitalism, including Mr. Ewer’s party.

Edgar Hardcastle

Socialism and Empire. (1925)

From the October 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard

Patriotism and the problems of Empire have always proved stumbling blocks to the workers and to their immature organisations, and nothing has more clearly shown the danger of half-knowledge than the ease with which the ruling class have been able to muddle their minds and inflame their passions by raising such issues. The world war and late developments of capitalist imperialism have given the question prominence by making more numerous and more bitter the struggles for independence of colonies and subject races, and in the verbal dispute between Communists, the I.L.P., the Labour Party and others the air is thick with charge and counter-charge of treachery to the Empire and treachery to the working-class. The dispute, however, leads to no simple conclusion because, as so often happens, the disputants have neglected first to decide whether they can agree on a few elementary Socialist principles. Before we examine the various proposals we must have a clear idea of the economic position and class interests of the workers, because it is from this foundation that they ought always to approach the issues presented to them.

The Position of the Workers. 

Wealth (excluding the air and other things abundantly supplied by nature) is produced by work. The work is performed by the great propertyless mass, the working class, but the means of wealth production, the machines, the land and so on, are owned by a class of non-workers, the capitalists. From this arises a great cleavage of interests, for it makes the workers dependent upon the owning-class since they cannot live except by entering the service of the owners. Out of the total wealth produced by their labour the workers receive but a part as wages, the remainder being retained by those who employ them. The one class lives by selling its services and the other by owning property. The everyday struggle over the division of the product sets these classes in perpetual antagonism, but the Socialist urges the workers to aim consciously not merely at increasing their share but at destroying the system of society which compels them to maintain a propertied class at their expense.

For the Socialist all forms of “living by owning,” rent, interest and profit are in effect nothing more than forms of exploitation, or robbery, of the wealth producers.

If this is correct, then it follows naturally that it is to the interest of the workers all over the world to act jointly in resisting any attempt to heighten the degree of that exploitation, and in overthrowing the system which is based upon exploitation. The enemy of the working class is the capitalist class.

But certain complications exist which prevent many workers from seeing where their interests lie. Lack of knowledge and race prejudices prevent those in one country from realising how essentially similar is their condition to that of workers in foreign countries. There are too real differences between the present circumstances of the workers in the more advanced and the more backward countries. Standards of living, of education, of political and personal freedom, and of political knowledge vary from, say, England or America to the hardly developed Asiatic dependencies of Great Britain; this in spite of the quite marked tendency towards a general equalising of conditions as industrial developments become more uniform all over the world under the pressure of competition.

Again, this very competition leads many workers astray. Exceptional prosperity in the British coal industry at a given time is gained at the expense of some foreign competitors. Viewing the matter from an individual and local standpoint, the miners are only too liable to agree with their employers who argue that the interests of British workers and owners are as one against those of their German or American rivals. Extending our view from one section of a capitalist industry to the whole of the industries of a country or group of countries, national rivalry often presents itself in such a form—war, for instance—as to induce great numbers of workers to join their own section of the ruling class against other sections which are likewise supported by their workers.

The Position of the Capitalist.

Capitalist countries—all of them—must organise their forces and direct their policy to ends which are vital to capitalist society, they must seek markets for surplus products, endeavour to monopolise sources of supply of raw materials where these are geographically limited, and protect ocean and overland communications to these areas. Britain holds tenaciously to her practical monopoly of tropical rubber producing areas, sits tight in Egypt in order to guard the routes to India, and keeps firm hold on the latter because it is a market of first importance and an area for the profitable investment of surplus profit gained by the exploitation of workers at home. The necessities of such imperialist policy bring our ruling class into inevitable conflict with other imperialist powers who also seek markets and monopolies, and into conflict with the colonial and native capitalists who resent having to share with foreign investors the profits of the exploitation of their own working class ; hence the war of 1914, and the independence movements in Ireland, India, Egypt, Canada and elsewhere.

Now let us examine the various parties in this country which claim to represent the working class.

The Labour Party.

The Labour Party openly and unashamedly supported the war in 1914 and associates now with its German patriot prototypes, the Social Democrats. It interests itself in the political and economic difficulties of the British capitalists, offers remedies to solve their industrial problems, assists in maintaining armed forces to defend capitalist property, loyally supports the Empire and opposes the grant of unconditional independence to any part of it. It is unnecessary to labour this point or answer the assertion that the Labour Party has changed for the better since the war because Mr. H. N. Brailsford, Editor of the New Leader, has recently written of the position now occupied by his party.

“We must face our own record as frankly. (I speak, of course, only for myself.) From the date of Mr. MacDonald’s first letter to the Indians on the eve of taking office, down to the recent debates on China, India, and our rubber monopoly, he and his closest associate, Mr. Thomas, have been leading the Party, openly and plainly, towards a reconciliation with Imperialism. His Indian record in office was worse than negative. Not only did he do nothing to advance Home Rule or to help the sweated Indian worker : he sanctioned the shameful Coercion Act in Bengal. His most recent speech gave reasons for doing nothing in India of which an old-fashioned Liberal would have been ashamed. There were other symptoms—the attitude to Mexico, the curt refusal of the Cypriote petition for union with Greece. But the gravest matter was his plain rejection of the League of Nations as the arbiter in our dispute with Egypt over the Canal and the Soudan. . . . We stand, as the French Party stands, a buttress of capitalist Imperialism.” (New Leader, August 21st, 1925.)

Leaving aside the influence of Liberal tradition and the habitual unthinking acceptance of capitalist ways of regarding politics, the ultimate explanation of this Labour Party attitude is that they have no basic quarrel with the capitalists or capitalism. They regard “profiteering” (or excessive profits) as “unjust,” but they do not hold all profit-making to be robbery of the workers. When they speak of “exploitation” what they mean is the payment of exceptionally low wages, they do not recognise that there can be no wage-earning, no wages system without exploitation. Thus Mr. Thomas, in “When Labour Rules,” Mr. MacDonald in “Socialism— Critical and Constructive,” Mr. Sydney Webb in “A Constitution for a Socialist Commonwealth,” all justify private property and the payment of profits, or interest to property owners. As Mr. Clynes says, “It is no part of Labour’s policy to establish revolutionary Socialism or to confiscate private property” (Glasgow Evening News, Oct. 4, 1923). Thus again in 1914 the workers of this country were urged by the Labour Party to fight lest they should, through a German victory, become slaves; and when the French occupied the Ruhr the same Party protested on the ground that it would make the German workers slaves. We, on the contrary, recognise that all the workers in a capitalist world are already wage-slaves to the propertied class, and that no fortune of war, whether victory or defeat, can alter the essentials of that situation. As we propose to deprive the capitalists of their property and do not admit that they have any rights whatever, it matters nothing to us that capitalist groups strive to plunder each other. The Labour Party recognise those property rights and therefore quite consistently seek to defend those whom they consider to be the rightful owners. It is consistent with their views of property but it is decidedly not consistent with working class interests and with Socialism.

“The Communist Party." 

This attitude does not meet with the approval of the Communists who oppose to the patriotism of the Labour Party an inverted patriotism of their own. They can see clearly enough that the interests of British workers clash with those of British capitalists but they cannot rest content with urging the workers everywhere to concentrate on resisting exploitation and on fighting their exploiters. They accept the false reasoning used by Mr. Francis Meynell when he edited the Communist. He urged support of the Indian native capitalists in their struggle against the British Government, on the ground that all enemies of the latter are the friends of the Communist Party. They proclaim the necessity and practicability of disrupting the British Empire, and ally themselves accordingly with every independence movement. What they forget or intentionally gloss over, is that national independence for Irish, Indians or Egyptians is no more a concern of the workers in those countries and should no more be fought for by them than national defence should concern workers here. To exchange Irish exploiters for English ones does not better the condition of Irish workers in the slightest degree; in actual fact, by stressing racial differences it adds to the obstacles preventing international co-operation in the trade union and political world. The enemies of the British ruling class are not necessarily friends of the British workers. We want to increase, not to obscure, the antagonism between one class and the other, and this cannot be done by urging Indian wage-slaves to waste precious years chasing the will o’ the wisp of nationality. Their masters alone will gain from such a course.

The Communist mind is also perverted by the determination not to read the signs of the times in Russia. British governmental hostility to the Russian Government leads the Communists to completely uncritical praise of the latter’s actions, oblivious of the extent to which those actions are driven by pressure of circumstance against working class interests. The Communists know quite well that there is no solution for the unemployment problem to be found in developing foreign trade, yet they have for years lent themselves to the anti-working class propaganda which promises untold benefits for British workers if only full trading relations with Russia are opened up. At present much of the hostility to the Bolshevik Government arises from the wish of foreign capitalists to have free access to this relatively undeveloped field for investment and exploitation. But whether that field is developed with or without the direct control of foreign capital, the entry of this new competitor into the world’s markets can only result in a worsening of the industrial conditions of workers generally, and an aggravation of the clashing of interests between capitalist groups. The Communists, too, like the Labour Party, refuse to recognise that exploitation is the necessary accompaniment of wage-labour. When the Labour Government proposed a £40,000,000 loan to Russia, the Communists were overjoyed, and Russian trade papers in their anxiety to attract foreign capital are full of reports of high profits earned by foreign traders and concessionaires. They decline to face the plain fact that interest on loans and profits on investments can come only from the exploitation of the Russian workers.

T. Johnston, I.L.P. member of Parliament and Editor of the Forward, takes the Communists to task for what he calls their “Whiggery in a Red Cravat.” He rightly condemns the obscured vision which can draw distinctions between sections of the capitalist class and see a friend of the workers in every exploiter who happens to have a quarrel with the British Empire. But Johnston himself is open to equal condemnation. He also is prepared to support schemes for the improvement of Empire trade, schemes, that is, to assist Empire capital in driving competitors from the world’s markets. Neither he nor anyone else has ever yet explained how this will benefit the world’s workers. The poverty in work, and greater poverty out of work, of the wage-earner is not dependent on the temporary ups and downs in particular industries or of all industries together. However, the total product of industry may vary with foreign trade fluctuations, there always has been, and is now, an enormous residue over and above wages, doles and relief, which is retained and consumed by the propertied class. What idiocy it is to tell the workers they must revive trade in order to get work and increase their wages, while an idle class is living on the product of the workers’ labour. When the workers wish they have the power on their hands to cut into that existing surplus whether trade is good or bad, or getting better or worse. While there is a single able-bodied property-owner living without working, only ignorance or treachery could ask the workers to devote thought to the increase of production, or to the quickening of foreign trade.

Johnston, again, owes his confusion to his inability to grasp what is meant by exploitation. Thus in Forward (Sept. 19) he writes in favour of the Labour movement here giving more attention to and entering into more cordial relations with Queensland which has a Labour Government. On the strength of this latter feature, Johnston, while repeating parrot-like the necessity of fighting exploitation, dubs Queensland a proletarian State. Actually, Queensland Government publications and the speeches of Labour Ministers and Members of Parliament demonstrate the incontrovertible fact that capitalist profits and the degree of exploitation of the workers in Queensland are greater, and the proportion of total production received by them as wages is less, than in any other Australian State now, and than was the case in Queensland when the Labour Government first took office ! (See Socialist Standard, Dec., 1923, and Feb., 1924.)

The Socialist Position.

The only safe rule of conduct for the workers is to stand firmly on the basis of their class economic interests. From this standpoint there can be no circumstances requiring them to participate in capitalist wars or trade rivalries. Even the supposed hardships resulting from military defeat do not outweigh the arguments in favour of the Socialist course of action outlined above. We have always urged that Reparations like rates and taxes are and must be a burden only on the propertied class. We are therefore not surprised to learn from the Ministry of Labour Gazette (June, 1925, Page 217) that an enquiry by the International Labour Office shows that real wages in Germany are approximately what they were in 1914 as are also wages in London. In victory and defeat the workers are still wage slaves, their poverty and insecurity are their only lifelong possession. They should not fight for “country and empire,” because they have nothing to fight for. They should refuse to help solve the economic problems of capitalist industry, or the political problems of capitalist empires and concentrate all their energies on the fight for Socialism.

Edgar Hardcastle